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Sweet Cobra Announce European Tour Dates; New Album Coming Soon

Posted in Whathaveyou on May 30th, 2014 by JJ Koczan

Underrated bombast specialists Sweet Cobra are playing with High on Fire this weekend in their native Chicago, and from there, the trio will join forces with Auxes for a run of European dates mostly in Germany and the Czech Republic. It’s been two years since the Seventh Rule veterans debuted on Black Market Activities with Mercy, and they’re reportedly got a follow-up in the works ready to release sometime before the end of the year. If you were, say, compiling a list of albums to watch for before 2015 and planning to post something like that in the next month or so, that might be handy information to keep in mind.

Ever-resilient, the PR wire seeks refuge among the converted:

Sweet Cobra Announces Upcoming European Tour w/ Auxes (ex-Milemarker)

New Album “Earth” Produced by Kurt Ballou and Matt Talbot of Hum Out Later This Year

The sonic assault of Sweet Cobra has been described by critics as everything from “hypnotic, riff-driven mayhem” to “sludgy groove with hardcore intensity.” Still, that doesn’t do their unmistakably original sound justice. Parallels can be drawn to Torche’s rapturous hooks, High On Fire’s hellbound riffing, and Young Widows’ stomping rhythms, but Sweet Cobra has always rocked with its own unique voice – earnest, driving, anthemic songs that are equally pummeling and trance-inducing.

A pillar of the underground for almost a decade now, SWEET COBRA was founded in Chicago in 2002 by bassist/vocalist Botchy Vasquez (The Killing Tree, Milemarker) and drummer Jason Gagovski (Suicide Note). Through the mid-00’s, the band released acclaimed music through Seventh Rule Recordings (Akimbo, Indian) and Gagovski’s own Hawthorne Street Records, and toured with the likes of Pelican, Russian Circles, Black Cobra, Doomriders, The Life And Times, and Young Widows.

In 2009 SWEET COBRA entered Volume Studio in Chicago with producer Sanford Parker (Pelican, Nachtmystium) to record its third full-length: Mercy for Black Market Activities. Mercy is a masterpiece of urgent, honest aggression, channeled into unforgettable songs. It is the definition of SWEET COBRA – ripping yet atmospheric, rocking yet angry as hell. Mixed by Kurt Ballou (Converge, Trap Them) at Godcity Studio and mastered by Carl Saff (Coliseum, White Drugs), Mercy features guest appearances by Robert Lowe (Lichens) and Bruce Lamont (Yakuza), among others. Album art comes courtesy of William Test.

Sweet Cobra Live!

European Tour Dates w/ Auxes
Thurs 06/12/14 Kiel, Germany at Hansa 48
Fri 06/13/14 Hamburg, Germany at Størte
Sat 06/14/14 Berlin, Germany at Schokoladen
Sun 06/15/14 Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic at Central
Mon 06/16/14 Prague, Czech Republic at 007
Tues 06/17/14 Leipzig, Germany at Zoro
Wed 06/18/14 Brno, Czech Republic at Boro
Thurs 06/19/14 Vienna, Austria at Rhiz
Fri 06/20/14 Bojkovice, Czech Republic at MisMas Fest
Sat 06/21/14 Plzen, Czech Republic at Pod Lampou

For more information, visit:
www.facebook.com/sweetcobra
www.hawthornestreetrecords.com

Sweet Cobra, “Silvered” from Mercy (2012)

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Sweet Cobra Show Some Mercy

Posted in Reviews on October 29th, 2010 by JJ Koczan

Veterans of Seventh Rule Recordings, Chicago heavy hitters Sweet Cobra make their Black Market Activities debut with the surprisingly melodic Mercy, an album that also serves as epitaph for guitarist Mat Arluck, who succumbed to cancer in 2009. Mercy, recorded by the ubiquitous Sanford Parker at Volume Studios in Chicago, features Arluck’s last studio performances with the band, giving the record an emotional context completely outside of the music – put to tape in the early part of last year even as Sweet Cobra released the stopgap Bottom Feeder EP, comprised of leftover cuts from 2007’s Forever full-length – but nonetheless inseparable from it.

Likening them to Seattle merchants Akimbo, what I’ve always enjoyed most in Sweet Cobra’s work has been the reckless bombast of it, like the hardcore kids grew up a little and wanted something thicker but no less angry. On Forever (reissued by Black Market in 2008) and the preceding Praise from 2004, Sweet Cobra touched on stoner riffage, but used it more as ploy to lure audiences into a false sense of security before pummeling them over the head with unhinged intensity and the feeling that at any moment the sound is going to manifest itself from out the speakers and actually kick your ass. On Mercy, they seem to show a little bit of just that, marrying neo-prog metal angularity with the branded Torche melodic vocal approach to hone their most accessible sound yet. And it’s not a fluke, they do it straight through the record, bassist Tim Remus employing a sub-melodic noise rock shout as the harshest vocal technique on the album on a song like the early-arriving title cut.

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